The American Century, Volume II [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Harold Evans (Author), Ira Claffey (Reader), Gail Buckland (Contributor), Kevin Baker (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 15, 1998 | Series: American Century (Book 2)

The winds began to blow in the spring and summer of 1929. nobody took much notice. The stock market soared from peak to peak, and President Hoover foresaw a final triumph over poverty. But two storms, one environmental, one financial, were about to break over America -- with horrific consequences.

This program traces the devastation of the Dust Bowl, the migration of the Okies, the Great Depression, the advent of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal, and the subsequent period of recovery, celebrated in the song "Happy Days are Here Again." But the happiness would not last. Across the Atlantic, other storm clouds were gathering, and as American democracy was flourishing, German democracy was being crushed under the rule of the new chancellor of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler.

Again, America attempted to follow a course of isolation, separate from "Europe's war." Gut that war became ours with a vengeance on December 7, 1941, with the attack on Pearl Harbor. On that day of infamy, America was catapulted into a conflict that would determine the future course of civilization -- a conflict that finally ended with the sun-bright flare of a bomb called Little Boy.

Harold Evans, picture researcher Gail Buckland, and historical researcher Kevin Baker worked diligently to ensure accuracy throughout this landmark work. This audio program intrigues and involves, vividly bringing to life the power and passion of the American century, a century like no other.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

First published as a lavishly illustrated coffee-table book, The American Century is a sweeping survey of the second 100 years of U.S. history as a republic18891989. It is an ambitious work that explores the most important forces driving modern U.S. history, which it constantly examines in the context of the world as a whole. This dual perspective emerges because author and journalist Evans is an immigrant from Britain who has been captivated by the energy and spirit of individual freedom he found in America. His book is clearly a labor of love. The four separate packages that comprise this production are labeled abridgments, but their combined 24 hours must constitute a large part of the original bookespecially since reader Ira Claffey speaks at an unusually fast pace. He is a smooth and spirited reader, but if this program has a fault it is that Claffey reads with too much energy, making it difficult to savor Evanss powerful prose. Recommended for all libraries with patrons hungry for good historical works on tape.R. Kent Rasmussen, Thousand Oaks, CA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Harold Evans is Editorial Director and Vice Chairman of U.S. News & World Report, Atlantic Monthly, and the New York Daily News. He was President and Publisher of the Random House Trade Group from 1990 to 1997. from 1967 to 1981 he was the prize-winning editor of The Sunday Times of London, and from 1981-1982, editor of The Times of London. He lives in New York City with his wife, Tina Brown, and their two children.

Ira Claffey has narrated or co-narrated numerous audio titles from Macmillan Audio.  His work includes Rock Rats, Thomas Jefferson, Rutherford B. Hayes, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Quincy Adams, Grover Cleveland, James Madison, and Theodore Roosevelt.  Of Ira’s narration of Theodore Roosevelt, AudioFile magazine has said, “Ira Claffey's passionate but cultivated voice is the perfect medium in which to join two men of refinement.”

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio; Abridged edition (December 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559275251
• ISBN-13: 978-1559275255
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,356,722 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Harold Evans is the author of two critically acclaimed landmark histories of America: the New York Times bestseller "The American Century" and "They Made America: Two Centuries of Innovators," selected by Fortune magazine on its own 75th anniversary as one of the best books of the previous 75 years. WGBH television made four documentaries based on Evans's work.
Evans first came to America in 1956 as a Harkness Fellow at the University of Chicago and Stanford University; he traveled through 40 states and reported for The Manchester Guardian his first-hand experiences of the civil rights battles in the Deep South. On his return, he became assistant editor of the sister paper, the Manchester Evening News, then editor of the leading provincial daily, The Northern Echo, where he succeeded in getting a resistant government to establish a life-saving program for the detection of cervical cancer, and won a royal pardon for a man wrongly executed for murder.
Appointed editor of the influential London Sunday Times in 1967 and then of The Times in 1981, Evans was voted by British journalists the greatest all-time editor and also awarded the European gold award for the investigations and campaigns he led: his Insight team exposed the spy Kim Philby, tracked the cause of the crash of a DC-10 airliner near Paris (then the world's most deadly crash), and won justice for the children affected by thalidomide.
Settling in America in 1982, after a famous battle with Rupert Murdoch, he was editorial director of US News & World Report, founding editor of Condé Nast Traveler, and president of Random House from 1990 to 1997. He remains a contributing editor of US News, is editor at large at The Week magazine, and is a frequent broadcaster on American affairs for the BBC.
In 2004 he was knighted for his service to journalism. He is now an American citizen who lives in New York with his wife, Tina Brown, and their son and daughter.